Tuesday, January 31, 2012

You root for your favorite players on the field, but do you know whom they're rooting for off of it?

The 10 News Investigators identified more than 200 individual political contributions since 2007 from Tampa Bay athletes, teams, and sports executives. Hundreds more were identified from previous years.

Dave Andreychuk, Ronde Barber, Warren Sapp, Wade Boggs, George Steinbrenner, the Glazers, and Stu Sternberg are all among the names you'll find in the database.

You'll also learn how much teams and leagues pour into PACs and lobbying to maintain their comfortable "way of life," such as anti-trust and tax exemptions, blackout policies, relationships with gambling, and even the BCS.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The lastest Forbes list dissing Malcom Glazer & fam names them the 8th-worst owners in the NFL. The list "looked at teams’ change in franchise value and win percentages (including a bump for playoff and Super Bowl victories) over the last five years. Each factor accounts for half of their rank."

Forbes cites the Bucs' pedestrian 2% increase in franchise value since 2006 and just 44% winning percentage over that time.

In an era where few prominent sports figures are willing to speak their minds politically (new Rays slugger Luke Scott not included), it would be refreshing to see Stu Sternberg use his leverage to push for better transit in Tampa Bay.

Of course, it could potentially help the Rays too. While St. Pete politicians may think rail could keep the Trop relevant long-term, I have a feeling Sternberg & co. have already discussed the possibility of a Rail & Rays referendum.

Just as the Bucs piggybacked their stadium efforts onto a schools referendum in 1995, the Rays could potentially tout the region-changing benefits of getting both rail and a stadium for one "low" price.

Of course, the price would likely be somewhere near $2 billion over 30 years in the form of a penny-per-dollar regional sales tax. And such a project would require significant legislative finagling. But it's happened time and time again in Florida and history could certainly repeat itself.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Florida State Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, sure knows how to deliver a quote. In fact, he's been delivering the same one for seven years.

Today in Tallahassee, he said, “We have spent over $300 million supporting teams that can afford to pay a guy $7, $8, $10 million a year to throw a baseball 90 feet. I think they can pay for their own stadium."

"I thank Senator Bennett for his desire to assist the fans of professional sports by offering to amend his bill with the blackout ban language," Senator Fasano said in a statement. "With the unanimous support of the committee I look forward to this good bill moving forward."

The conflict over the Trop has been like a chess game; each move has been slow and calculated. For example, the city of St. Pete hired a bankruptcy lawyer while drafting the contract, a strategy to counter the team using bankruptcy as a means to escape its agreement.

But Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn has the power to change that game, by officially proposing a location in downtown Tampa for a new Rays stadium.

Buckhorn often speaks about the benefits of having the Rays downtown, but publically announcing a Hillsborough location for the Rays to call home could give the team’s owners the leverage to broker a way out of St. Pete.

How long can the Rays compete with the bloated salaries of the Yankees and the Red Sox while ranked second-to-last in average attendance? Certainly not for the next 15 years. Especially while serving as a pseudo-farm system for their two divisional rivals.

Mayor Buckhorn says the Rays “can’t start dating” until the team escapes its use agreement at the Trop. But offering a stadium site in Tampa could put the Rays back on the market.

Even though the idea was called a "bold prediction for 2012," one can't help but to wonder how another round of Tampa vs. St. Pete would pan out.

"When (Sternberg) says he wants to look everywhere (for a new stadium), he means it," Foster said on WQYK. "It's not just Tampa Bay. . . . I don't think they see Hillsborough County as the answer."

So Devil's Advocate poses this question - if the concern really is the region, isn't it shortsighted for newspapers to push the issue now when it could be addressed in 2020 instead?

It seems the Rays have neither the legal leverage nor the alternatives to leave before then. And 8-10 years from now, we'll have a much better idea of where people live in Tampa Bay and how they get around.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

SARASOTA, Fla. - While Tampa Bay tries to sort out its stadium stalemate, critics of public subsidies in Sarasota are sending a warning to their friends to the north.

Three years after Sarasota landed Orioles spring training with a $31.2 million upgrades package, some of the promised benefits to the county still have yet to materialize. That includes a Cal Ripken Jr. Youth Baseball Academy, similar to two other year-round facilities in Aberdeen, Md., and Myrtle Beach, S.C.

"The public was promised one thing and now the Orioles and Cal Ripken aren't coming through," said Cathy Antones, president of Sarasota Citizens for Responsible Government. "It seems that when you put the name Major League Baseball or someone like Cal Ripken or the Orioles on it, [county commissioners] lose their common sense."

Apparently, a 33% raise isn't enough for a pitcher who has gone 33-32 with a 3.73 ERA the last three years. Why? Because the current salary structure rewards players for merely lasting in the league. Experience = salary.

Meanwhile, David Price, who has posted superior numbers the last three years, just signed for a mere $4.35 million, the most ever for a first-year arbitration-eligible player.

Exactly as predicted, the status of the Stadium Saga is the exact same as it was a few days ago: a stadium stalemate.

As I reported yesterday for WTSP, the mayor of St. Petersburg met with Rays owner Stu Sternberg for roughly two hours at Tropicana Field. Yet, Foster told me he had no comment and Sternberg essentially said the same thing to the print reporters staking out The Trop.

He joins the chorus of columnists urging Mayor Foster to cooperate with the Rays and for Stu Sternberg to reveal his financials (good luck with that). However, Henderson doesn't suggest how to break the stalemate.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that the mayor roll over. There is no reason for that. He has aterrific lease at Tropicana Field, and he should use it to his greatest benefit.

But he needs to recognize the lease will be half-over by the end of the year, and the Rays are going to pay less and less to get out of it as the expiration date draws nearer....He should tell Sternberg he considers the Rays to be important business partners. And he hasn't given up on the idea of baseball in his town.

But if his business partner wants to look at sites in Hillsborough, the mayor will not stand in the way as long as the Rays make some concessions.

First of all, they need to sign a contract that acknowledges that such a move in no way weakens the lease at Tropicana. Since the Rays signed a similar document when looking at a waterfront site, this shouldn't be a problem.

The Rays also need to put up $1 million in earnest money for the privilege of talking to Tampa. Again, this shouldn't be much of a deal breaker.

Finally, should the Rays eventually decide that moving to downtown Tampa is integral to thefranchise's future, they must agree to allow St. Pete to view their finances to prove this is true. I'm betting that one will be sticky.

Wait, did I say Romano was being reasonable? Nevermind, he suggested the Rays might one day voluntarily open their books.

People don't give Foster (a lawyer) enough credit for paying attention to the end game. He has always known his job is to leverage a buyout number the city can live with. Just like Sternberg's job is to wiggle his way out of the contract with minimal financial penalty.

Back to Sternberg, the Tampa Bay Times reports that the Rays' owner didn't have much new to say about the saga or his Jan. 17 meeting with Mayor Foster (first reported on Shadow of the Stadium). It quotes Sternberg as saying, "it's good to communicate" and "if (Foster) has something to chat about other than normal chatting that would be great."

However, the first off-season rumblings of the Stadium Saga may actually come Saturday when Sternberg makes a public appearance with his family in Sulpher Springs. The Rays will be helping to build a playground there and the Sternberg family is planning on attending. Thus, so will members of the media.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Mayor Bill Foster finally has an offseason meeting scheduled with Rays' owner Stu Sternberg. The two will meet at Tropicana Field later this month.

But while the meeting may be long-awaited for Rays fans, it doesn't expect to be terribly productive for new stadium supporters. Foster is unlikely to bend much when he has a contract that ties the team down for 16 more years and Sternberg is unlikely to stop insisting Tampa Bay take a regional approach to keeping the team.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

If you haven't found Shadow of the Stadium on Facebook and/or Twitter yet, what are you waiting for? These outlets are the easiest way to follow local sports business storylines and they often include additional materials you won't find on this blog.